


A Woman Waits for Me

by Dr Quinn_Geekery (Outlander_Geekery)



Series: The Whitman Sessions [1]
Category: Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-06 15:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17347400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outlander_Geekery/pseuds/Dr%20Quinn_Geekery
Summary: The idea for this series of stories came to me after watching The Library. At the end of the episode, Michaela agrees to allow Sully to share more of Walt Whitman’s poetry with her. My thought is that the poetry would have been a catalyst for them to discuss sex and become more comfortable with each other, which is why I think Sully was interested in sharing with her. This series will have 3-4 standalone evenings, based on a different snippet of poetry, leading up to their wedding night. The overall rating is Mature to Explicit.This first story takes place between the events of A Washington Affair and Money Trouble.





	A Woman Waits for Me

“Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex, Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.” Sully’s soft voice tickled Michaela’s neck as they sat side by side on the front porch of her homestead. Brian and Colleen had gone to bed, and Matthew had stayed in town for the night. This was their time to spend together in relative privacy -- no innocent ears, no prying eyes -- just a sleeping Wolf at their feet and the stars above their heads. 

The first night Sully had read Walt Whitman’s poetry to Michaela, she’d been shocked to find the words so raw and explicit. The reading abruptly ended when Michaela literally jumped out of her seat. Her ears had burned with embarrassment and her eyes welled with the fear she looked foolish. Sully seemed so comfortable to speak plainly of sexual things in her presence. Michaela had been anything but comfortable. She’d felt flush and sweaty despite the cool weather.

After they’d discussed it further, she’d agreed to give it another chance. She could tell Sully was eager to share this with her, and she hoped it would help assuage some of her fears about what happens between a man and woman in bed, or out of bed based on some of Whitman’s poetry. She wanted to have the same open mindedness about this subject that she had for other aspects of her life, it just didn’t seem to come as easily.

This night, Michaela snuggled closer into Sully’s side. She pulled the soft quilt draped across their lap up higher to protect them against the chilled air.

“Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women, I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me, I see that they understand me and do not deny me, I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of those women.”

Michaela tensed at this passage.

“Ya alright?” Sully inquired.

“Sounds like he doesn’t want a wife, he wants one of Hank’s girls.” Michaela replied with injust. 

“I don’t think that’s what he means.”

“No?” Michaela looked up at him defensively. She pointed down at the page where Sully had just been reading. “I will dismiss myself from impassive women … her who waits for me … warm-blooded and sufficient … do not deny me. It sounds like if she is anything but eager he doesn’t want her.”

“I think he just means that he wants a woman who will be open to showin’ her love that way. Not be embarrassed or ashamed. He wants her to enjoy givin’ and receivin’ pleasure.” Sully absently rubbed his thumb up and down the edges of the book’s worn pages.

“Is that what you want?” Michaela sat up straighter in her chair and pulled out of Sully’s arms. 

“I think that’s what all men want.” He caressed her shoulder. 

“Not all women are wired like that, Sully. Proper women aren’t going to act that way. I understand as a man you have needs, but for women sex is for procreation. I just...” Michaela looked down at her lap. “It’s getting late. I should get inside.”

“Michaela, no. Let’s talk about it. That really what you think? That you have to do it just to please me?” Sully shifted in his seat enough for Wolf to give a lazy glance up before resting his head down again.

“I don’t know…” Michaela was quiet for a moment before she continued. “What about what she is feeling, Sully? He has no inclination to want to help her or take time for her.”

“I think he’s plenty willing to take his time, to make her feel comfortable, to make sure her pleasure is taken care of, I think it’s only if she isn’t willing to be open to receivin’ his efforts.” 

Michaela wondered if Sully was still talking about the “He” in the poem, or himself. She had also gotten stuck around the words “her pleasure.” Michaela knew it was possible for a woman to feel pleasure, but the reality of it happening during relations with one’s husband didn’t seem like a common occurrence based on stories she had heard.

“Sully, may I ask you a question?” 

“‘Course, anything.”

“Well, it’s a question I’ve asked you before, but you didn’t give me an answer.”

“What is it?” Sully closed the book and set it on the small table next to him. 

“How many women have you been with? Not just since Abigail. How many women in all?”

Sully exhaled and Michaela felt all his hope for this evening leave his body with the breath.

“Are you askin’ because you want to know, or because you’re lookin’ for another reason to question if we are right for each other?”

“I’m asking because we’re going to be husband and wife. You’re the one that said we shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. You know how many men I have been with. It’s only fair.”

“Ya haven’t been with anyone!”

“Correct, your turn.” She lifted her chin. 

“I’ll tell you, but ya have to promise that you won’t pull away from me.” 

“Sully, you’re scaring me.”

“Five. Five women, Michaela. Two before Abigail and two since.”

Michaela moved from facing him to staring straight ahead in her chair. “I see,” she said in a soft voice. She hadn’t expected that number. Two since Abigail. Were they both since she had known him?

She was about to ask when Sully spoke again.

“No one since I realized I had feelings for you.”

She exhaled. She still felt stunned, but it was a small comfort. “Will you tell me about them?” 

Sully made a small noise of protest before he gave in and sighed. Michaela knew the look on his face well. It was the look of a man who knew his woman wouldn’t back down. “My first time was when I was fourteen. She was about ten years older.”

“Fourteen. That’s only a few years older than Brian, younger than Matthew!” Michaela was astonished. 

“I know. But I didn’t have a Ma to set me straight. I was makin’ my own decisions. And when you’re a young man, and a woman offers you that, it’s hard to refuse.”

“You were a boy.” Michaela reached out for his hand. 

“I had been livin’ on my own for four years by then. I was as much a man as any 20-year-old.” Sully looked Michaela in the eyes. “Anyway, I loved her, or at least I thought I did. She taught me things … that it ain’t just about the man’s pleasure. She taught me what it was to be with a woman.”

“I see.” Michaela was filled with several emotions -- jealousy, hurt, but also arousal. She wasn’t sure exactly what to expect once they were husband and wife, but she flushed at the idea that Sully would know how to give her pleasure if she would let him. 

“After she ended it, I felt sorry for myself for a while … until I met someone on the ride out here. She continued on to California so it wasn’t serious.” Sully shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “When I first moved out here, I was too busy workin’. Then I met Abigail.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Michaela didn’t like to think too long about what Sully had shared with Abigail. It was more than just his body with her. He had loved her — made a baby with her. If Abigail hadn’t died, Michaela knew that she and Sully would only have a friendship. Even if he would have felt attracted to her, Abigail would’ve still had his heart and complete fidelity. Michaela wouldn’t love him as much as she did now if she thought anything less.

“And after?” She asked.

Sully sighed. “After Abigail ... I was lost. I enlisted. As you know, I deserted,” he paused before adding, “it was the first and only time I was with a prostitute.”

Michaela was silent. She had the answer to a question she’d wondered for a while. She knew Sully had never procured the company of any of the women in the Saloon. She knew this mainly because she’d overheard the girls express their displeasure at having never had the opportunity to entertain him. But still, she had wondered if he had ever had the temptation. Now she had her answer.

There was still one women left.

Sully continued. “Since comin’ back to Colorado Springs, there’s been one woman. A Cheyenne.”

“Cheyenne? Were you courting her?”

“No. The Cheyenne don’t have the same views on sexuality. If a woman sees a man she would like to spend time with, she is free to do so without shame.”

“And you accepted the invitation?”

Michaela could see sadness in his eyes, though she could tell he was trying hard to not allow her to make him feel ashamed.

“I did.” Sully nodded.

Michaela stared straight ahead. Two tears slipped down her face. Her thoughts were jumbled in her head and she felt clammy in her clothes. Part of her knew it was unreasonable to be upset with him over women he was with before he started courting her, but the other part of her was hurt that he had shared that part of himself with a woman in recent past. Too recent.

A thought struck Michaela and she looked at Sully with wide eyes. “Have I met her?”

Sully looked down at his hands. “Yes.”

A pit formed in Michaela’s stomach. “Who is she?”

“You like each other very much. It will change the way you think of her and that ain’t fair to either of you.” Sully refused.

“She’s seen us together at the reservation. She’s seen us together and all the while known that I had no idea. I’m so embarrassed.” 

“Michaela, I swear to you I ain’t been with a women since I realized I had feelin’s for you.”

“When? Since Boston?”

Michaela stood up, their shared quilt slipped to the floor next to Wolf as she went to the porch’s railing. “We had known each other for a year at that point, Sully. You’d kissed me! You said you weren’t ready for more, but what you meant was you weren’t ready to wait for a *virgin*.” The word came out in a hushed tone and she glanced towards the house.

Sully stood up to follow her, almost tripping on the blanket in the process. “Michaela, stop it. You’re making things up in your head. It was before that. It was before our first Christmas.”

“The first Christmas?”

“Yes. After that evening I knew I couldn’t be with another woman feelin’ the way I did about you.”

Michaela looked up at him. She was relieved to know it hadn’t been as recent as she originally thought, but she still couldn’t shake the pit in her stomach. “She probably wanted you to court her, Sully.” 

“She didn’t. She didn’t want me that way. And she knew I was never an option because I couldn’t join the Cheyenne permanently and that was the only way marriage would be possible.”

Michaela’s mind still bounced to the pretty faces she’d seen on the reservation. She’d met so many young and beautiful women. It could be any one of them. “I feel so foolish.”

“It had nothin’ to do with you.”

That was not the right response. 

“Nothing to do with me? I thought … I thought you considered what happens between a man and woman in bed to be special. I thought it meant more to you. But you’re just as ruled by the appendage between your legs as every other man in town!”

“That ain’t true, Michaela, and it ain’t fair for you to say. I do believe it is special. And when we share a bed it will be the most special. We will be sharin’ our love for each other.” Sully sighed. “I was lonely, Michaela. It feels good. And it feels good to hold a woman and be held. I have been weak, but never have I thought it ain’t special.”

“She’s touched you. She’s seen you...” Michaela inhaled shakily, cutting off her sentence.

“I can’t change that. But Michaela, I’ve never brushed her hair, or taken care of her children. I want you to be the last women who ever sees me and touches me.” Sully paused and moved to wrap his arms around her. 

Michaela’s resolve softened, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. “I’m not going to be able to go back to the reservation without wondering who she is.”

“I know. I will tell you right now if you really want, but I beg you to wait until after we’re married. After you are both on even ground, so to speak.” Sully smiled. “I think after you see how it will be between us you will feel more confident she could never compete with what we have.”

Michaela nodded and sniffed. 

“I can’t wait to marry you, Michaela.” Sully kissed her forehead. “I can’t wait to be in our new homestead.” Sully kissed her nose. “I can’t wait to have our own private room.” Sully kissed her lips. “I’ll make the walls extra thick.” 

“Sully!” Michaela pulled out of his embrace to admonish his bawdy comment, but she giggled despite herself. 

Sully pulled her tight to him again. “I can’t wait to share everything with you, Michaela.”

“I want that too.” She rested her head on his chest.

“It’s late, I should get goin’.” Sully turned around and picked up the book of Walt Whitman’s poetry before coming back to face her again. “Can we do this again soon?”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

“Goodnight, I love you.”

“I love you too, Sully. So much.”

He kissed her lips one more time before he stepped down off the porch and into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> In Money Trouble, Michaela points out that she and Sully had discussed they would need privacy. This is my interpretation of when it was mentioned.


End file.
